ORCID Profile
0000-0001-6556-8041
Current Organisation
Australian National University
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Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Transport Planning | Environmental Science and Management | Environmental Management | Environmental management | Human impacts of climate change and human adaptation | Urban geography | Urban Policy | Human geography |
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Climate Change Mitigation Strategies | Management of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Energy Activities (excl. Electricity Generation) | Environmentally Sustainable Transport not elsewhere classified
Related Links
Publications
Sustainability experiments in Asia: innovations shaping alternative development pathways?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2010
Global sustainability: the challenge ahead
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1017/SUS.2018.8
Pollution Control: In China's Huai River Basin: What Lessons for Sustainability?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-2006
Digitalization and the Anthropocene
Publisher: Annual Reviews
Date: 17-10-2022
DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV-ENVIRON-120920-100056
Abstract: Great claims have been made about the benefits of dematerialization in a digital service economy. However, digitalization has historically increased environmental impacts at local and planetary scales, affecting labor markets, resource use, governance, and power relationships. Here we study the past, present, and future of digitalization through the lens of three interdependent elements of the Anthropocene: ( a) planetary boundaries and stability, ( b) equity within and between countries, and ( c) human agency and governance, mediated via ( i) increasing resource efficiency, ( ii) accelerating consumption and scale effects, ( iii) expanding political and economic control, and ( iv) deteriorating social cohesion. While direct environmental impacts matter, the indirect and systemic effects of digitalization are more profoundly reshaping the relationship between humans, technosphere and planet. We develop three scenarios: planetary instability, green but inhumane, and deliberate for the good. We conclude with identifying leverage points that shift human–digital–Earth interactions toward sustainability.
Urban sustainability experiments in Asia: patterns and pathways
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2010
Can urban-level strategies foster nascent hydrogen industries?
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 26-05-2023
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-2776509/V1
Abstract: Many cities are developing strategies to foster rapid growth of the hydrogen industry for both environmental and economic benefits. Yet, the effectiveness of these strategies remains unclear. This paper addresses this gap. We extract the motivators and enabling factors of 21 frontrunner cities in China in implementing local hydrogen strategies. To examine whether frontrunner cities’ strategies lead to increased hydrogen industry development, a two-way fixed effects regression analysis is performed to the panel data of 19 frontrunner cities and 64 matching control cities during 2012-2021. We find that cities implementing hydrogen strategies saw increasing the number of firms, and, more tentatively, the investment scale. Our findings suggest cities can enable nascent hydrogen industry development, and have the potential to support broader energy system transition.
Positive inertia and proactive influencing towards sustainability: systems analysis of a frontrunner city
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-11-2019
DOI: 10.1186/S42854-019-0001-7
Abstract: With an increasingly urban population, cities have an important role to play in global environmental sustainability. Cities engaged in pioneering and ongoing sustainability experimentation—the frontrunners—can lead the way towards sustainability transition, and often become the beacon for others to follow. However, the nature and the internal dynamics that make a city a frontrunner, or the role of frontrunner cities in sustainability transition beyond their boundary, remain unclear. In addition, most studies on the influence of these frontrunners are limited to passive influencing, i.e. how the practice has been duplicated by others, or how the practice is adopted and mainstreamed into system level. Based on in-depth case studies on a frontrunner city and two other cities influenced by it, this paper examines how momentum for positive changes has been initiated, built, and sustained towards changing the status quo of practice through a succession of actors and a series of reinforcing feedback loops. We argue that creating a positive inertia through sustained momentum and embedding the frontrunner identity in a city is essential for it to continue the process of sustainability transition. Frontrunners can create flow-on benefits for other cities through a proactive influencing . Supported by multiple two-way benefits, such proactive influencing is a new mechanism of mainstreaming and up-scaling urban sustainability experiments in system innovation and transition.
Effectiveness of urban surface characteristics as mitigation strategies for the excessive summer heat in cities
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2021
Society: Realizing China's urban dream
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-05-2014
DOI: 10.1038/509158A
Demand-side solutions to climate change mitigation consistent with high levels of wellbeing
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 07-01-2021
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-127928/V1
Abstract: Climate mitigation solutions are often evaluated in terms of their costs and potentials. This accounting, however, shortcuts a comprehensive evaluation of how climate solutions affect human well-being, which, at best, may only be crudely related to cost considerations. Here, we systematically list key sectoral mitigation options on the demand side, and categorize them into avoid, shift and improve categories. We show that these options, bridging socio-behavioral, infrastructural and technological domains, can reduce counterfactual sectoral emissions by 50-80% in end use sectors. Based on expert judgement and literature survey, we then evaluate 324 combinations of wellbeing outcomes and demand side options. We find that these are largely beneficial in improving wellbeing across all measures combined (76% have positive, 22% neutral, and 2.4% have negative effects), even though confidence level is low in the social dimensions of wellbeing. Implementing demand-side solution requires i) an understanding of malleable not fixed preferences, ii) consistently measuring and evaluating constituents of wellbeing, and iii) addressing concerns of incumbents in supply-side industries. Our results shift the emphasis in the climate mitigation solution space from supply-side technologies to demand-side service provision.
Urbanization Challenges in China: Critical Issues in an Era of Rapid Growth edited by Yan Song and Chengri Ding Smart Urban Growth for China edited by Yan Song and Chengri Ding
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 18-11-2010
Re-conceptualizing the Anthropocene: A call for collaboration
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2016
Editors' Picks
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-04-2010
Quantifying and managing food-sourced nutrient metabolism in Chinese cities
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2016
DOI: 10.1016/J.ENVINT.2016.04.036
Abstract: Food supply and consumption are critical for sustaining urban system functions, and are key determinants of the quantity and pathways of nutrient flow in cities. Nutrient elements from urban food consumption are becoming major pollutant sources in urban environments. Therefore, understanding flow magnitude and pathways, the role of a growing population, and changing dietary structure and technology in future nutrient metabolism are essential to understand cities as ecosystems and urban environmental management. Taking the city of Xiamen, a rapid urbanizing area of Southeast China as a case study, we simulated urban metabolism of three major food-sourced nutrient elements (carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus or CNP) over 1991-2010 and environmental emissions. Impacts of future population growth, dietary habit change, and waste treatment improvement on various environments were forecast by scenario analysis. A sensitivity analysis was conducted to test how different waste treatment technologies affect environmental emissions from food-sourced nutrients. Our results show that the food-sourced CNP had various metabolic fluxes through urban systems, with carbon mostly emitted into the air and nitrogen and phosphorus mostly discharged into landfills and water. Population growth and dietary structure change will accelerate increases of nutrient emissions to the environment, whereas enhancing current waste treatment technology can just alter emissions to different environments. Based on the results, we discuss how food-sourced nutrient metabolism can be better managed, to enhance connectivity between cities and their hinterlands and maintain environmental emissions within the carrying capacity of the cities.
What EV users say about policy efficacy: Evidence from Shanghai
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2023
Urbanization can benefit agricultural production with large-scale farming in China
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-03-2021
Comparison of household consumption and regional production approaches to assess urban energy use and implications for policy
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2011
Modeling the urban water-energy nexus: A case study of Xiamen, China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2019
Energizing Sustainable Cities
Publisher: Routledge
Date: 12-11-2012
Four steps to food security for swelling cities
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2019
Six research priorities for cities and climate change
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-02-2018
Eight energy and material flow characteristics of urban ecosystems
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-05-2016
Down to Earth: Contextualizing the Anthropocene
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2016
Industrial Ecology and the Global Impacts of Cities
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-2007
Linking Urbanization and the Environment: Conceptual and Empirical Advances
Publisher: Annual Reviews
Date: 17-10-2017
DOI: 10.1146/ANNUREV-ENVIRON-102016-061128
Abstract: Urbanization is one of the biggest social transformations of modern time, driving and driven by multiple social, economic, and environmental processes. The impacts of urbanization on the environment are profound, multifaceted and are manifested at the local, regional, and global scale. This article reviews recent advances in conceptual and empirical knowledge linking urbanization and the environment, focusing on six core aspects: air pollution, ecosystems, land use, biogeochemical cycles and water pollution, solid waste management, and the climate. We identify several emerging trends and remaining questions in urban environmental research, including (a) increasing evidence on the lified or accelerated environmental impacts of urbanization (b) varying distribution patterns of impacts along geographical and other socio-economic gradients (c) shifting focus from understanding and quantifying the impacts of urbanization toward understanding the processes and underlying mechanisms (d) increasing focus on understanding complex interactions and interlinkages among different environmental, social, economic, and cultural processes and (e) conceptual advances that call for articulating and using a systems approach in cities. In terms of governing the urban environment, there is an increasing focus on public participation and coproduction of knowledge with stakeholders. Cities are actively experimenting toward sustainability under a plethora of guiding concepts that manifests their aspirational goals, with varying levels of implementation and effectiveness.
Sustainability: China's path to ecotopia
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-2017
DOI: 10.1038/550037A
Urbanization in and for the Anthropocene
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-02-2021
Financing urban low-carbon transition: the catalytic role of a city-level special fund in Shanghai
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2020
Immunohistochemical analysis of sustentacular cells in the adrenal medulla, carotid body and sympathetic ganglion of mice using an antibody against brain‐type fatty acid binding protein (B‐FABP)
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-03-2015
DOI: 10.1111/JOA.12285
Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-03-2023
Experimenting towards a low-carbon city: Policy evolution and nested structure of innovation
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2018
A Global Analysis of the Relationship Between Urbanization and Fatalities in Earthquake-Prone Areas
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2021
DOI: 10.1007/S13753-021-00385-Z
Abstract: Urbanization can be a challenge and an opportunity for earthquake risk mitigation. However, little is known about the changes in exposure (for ex le, population and urban land) to earthquakes in the context of global urbanization, and their impacts on fatalities in earthquake-prone areas. We present a global analysis of the changes in population size and urban land area in earthquake-prone areas from 1990 to 2015, and their impacts on earthquake-related fatalities. We found that more than two thirds of population growth (or 70% of total population in 2015) and nearly three quarters of earthquake-related deaths (or 307,918 deaths) in global earthquake-prone areas occurred in developing countries with an urbanization ratio (percentage of urban population to total population) between 20 and 60%. Holding other factors constant, population size was significantly and positively associated with earthquake fatalities, while the area of urban land was negatively related. The results suggest that fatalities increase for areas where the urbanization ratio is low, but after a ratio between 40 and 50% occurs, earthquake fatalities decline. This finding suggests that the resistance of building and infrastructure is greater in countries with higher urbanization ratios and highlights the need for further investigation. Our quantitative analysis is extended into the future using Shared Socioeconomic Pathways to reveal that by 2050, more than 50% of the population increase in global earthquake-prone areas will take place in a few developing countries (Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh) that are particularly vulnerable to earthquakes. To reduce earthquake-induced fatalities, enhanced resilience of buildings and urban infrastructure generally in these few countries should be a priority.
Synchronized travel restrictions across cities can be effective in COVID-19 control
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 06-04-2020
DOI: 10.1101/2020.04.02.20050781
Abstract: The COVID-19 outbreak is under control in China. Mobility interventions, including both the Wuhan lockdown and travel restrictions in other cities, have been undertaken in China to mitigate the epidemic. However, the impact of mobility restrictions in cites outside Wuhan has not been systematically analyzed. Here we ascertain the relationships between all mobility patterns and the epidemic trajectory in Chinese cities outside Hubei Province, and we estimate the impact of local travel restrictions. We estimate local inter-city travel bans averted 22.4% (95% PI: 16.8–27.9%) more infections in the two weeks after the Wuhan lockdown, while local intra-city travel prevented 32.5% (95% PI: 18.9–46.1%) more infections in the third and fourth weeks. More synchronized implementation of mobility interventions would further decrease the number of confirmed cases in the first two weeks by 15.7% (95% PI:15.4–16.0%). This study shows synchronized travel restrictions across cities can be effective in COVID-19 control.
Urbanization and air quality as major drivers of altered spatiotemporal patterns of heavy rainfall in China
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-05-2017
Rethinking the role of occupant behavior in building energy performance: A review
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2018
Evaluating the effectiveness of urban energy conservation and GHG mitigation measures: The case of Xiamen city, China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2010
Defining and advancing a systems approach for sustainable cities
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2016
Contributing to regional decarbonization: Australia's potential to supply zero-carbon commodities to the Asia-Pacific
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2022
The process and mechanism of urban environmental change: an evolutionary view
Publisher: Inderscience Publishers
Date: 2003
Political Translation and the Sustainable Development Goals
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date: 07-05-2020
DOI: 10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190067205.013.18
Abstract: The chapter argues that whether or not the world is successful in attaining sustainability, political systems are in a process of epoch-defining change as a result of the unsustainable demands of our social systems. This chapter theorizes a framework for analyzing the political “translation” of sustainability norms within national polities. Translation , in this sense, denotes the political reinterpretation of sustainable development as well as the national capacities and contexts which impact how sustainability agendas can be instrumentalized. This requires an examination into the political architecture of a national polity, the norms that inform a political process, socioecological contexts, the main communicative channels involved in the dissemination of political discourse and other key structures and agencies, and the kinds of approaches toward sustainability that inform the political process. This framework aims to draw attention to the ways in which global economic, political, and social systems are adapting and transforming as a result of unsustainability and to further understanding of the effectiveness of globally diffused sustainability norms in directing that change.
Carbon emissions from urban takeaway delivery in China
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 06-06-2023
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-2924102/V1
Abstract: Online food delivery has become a popular mode of urban food consumption in China as its underlying business mechanism, Online To Offline (O2O), gaining popularity. However, the environmental impacts of a rapidly expanding online food delivery industry and its potential to mitigate environmental burdens remained unexplored in China. Our research found that Chinese cities generated 8.37 MtCO2-equivalent (CO2e) from 13.07 billion times of deliveries in 2019, including transport and packaging. The transportation-related GHG emissions were 7.45 MtCO2e in 2019, with an average of 0.057 kg CO2e per order and an average of 0.011 kg CO2e per capita. These emissions have surged from 1.55 MtCO2e in 2014 to 13.75 MtCO2e in 2021. We predict that this figure will increase further to 29.83 MtCO2e by 2035. However, with a range of policies such as replacing motorcycles with electric bikes and optimizing traffic routes, it is possible to mitigate such GHG emissions by 43.88 ~ 109.70 MtCO2e between 2023 and 2035. These findings highlight the need for further research into the environmental impact of online food delivery and the potential for mitigating it.
Opportunities and challenges for development of urbanization in Western China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2013
Positive visions for guiding urban transformations toward sustainable futures
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2016
Greening Growing Giants
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 08-2012
Integrating Global Environmental Concerns into Urban Management: The Scale and Readiness Arguments
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-2007
University partnerships for co-designing and co-producing urban sustainability
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2014
Cities: build networks and share plans to emerge stronger from COVID-19
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-08-2020
A planetary boundary for green water
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 26-04-2022
Characterizing energy-related occupant behavior in residential buildings: Evidence from a survey in Beijing, China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2020
How to stop cities and companies causing planetary harm
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-09-2022
Safe and just Earth system boundaries
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 31-05-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S41586-023-06083-8
Abstract: The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked 1–3 , yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized consequently, they are often treated independently 4,5 . Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice) 4 . The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are already exceeded. We propose that our assessment provides a quantitative foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people now and into the future.
A vision for human well-being: transition to social sustainability
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2012
Health and wellbeing in the changing urban environment: complex challenges, scientific responses, and the way forward
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2012
Driving forces and impacts of food system nitrogen flows in China, 1990 to 2012
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2017.08.071
Abstract: Food nitrogen (N), which includes animal-food (AN) and plant-food N (PN), has been driven by population growth (PG), dietary changes associated with income growth (DC) and rural-urban migration (M) over the past three decades, and these changes combined with their N cost, have caused some effect on N use in China's food system. Although there is an increasing literature on food N and its environmental impacts in China, the relative magnitude of these driving forces are not well understood. Here we first quantify the differences in per capita AN and PN consumption in urban and rural areas and their impacts on N input to the food system during 1990-2012, and then quantify the relative contributions of DC, PG and M in the overall N change during this period. Our results show that a resident registered as living in city required 0.5kg more ANyr
Examining the attitude-behavior gap in residential energy use: Empirical evidence from a large-scale survey in Beijing, China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2021
Earth system boundaries and Earth system justice: sharing the ecospace
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 24-07-2023
Sustainable Urbanization in Western China
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-04-2014
Industrial Relocation in AsiaA Sound Environmental Management Strategy?
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-2002
Urban tinkering
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-08-2018
Demand-side solutions to climate change mitigation consistent with high levels of well-being
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 25-11-2021
Comparing vulnerability of coastal communities to land use change: Analytical framework and a case study in China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2012
Plausible and desirable futures in the Anthropocene: A new research agenda
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2016
Scientists must have a say in the future of cities
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-2016
DOI: 10.1038/538165A
How can we live within the safe and just Earth system boundaries for blue water?
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 02-05-2023
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-2861426/V1
Abstract: Safe and just Earth System Boundaries (ESBs) for surface and groundwater (blue water) have been defined for sustainable water management in the Anthropocene. We evaluate where minimum human needs can be met within the surface water ESB and, where this is not possible, identify how much groundwater is required. 2.6 billion people live in catchments where groundwater is needed because they are already outside the surface water ESB or have insufficient surface water to meet human needs and the ESB. Approximately 1.4 billion people live in catchments where demand side transformations are required as they either exceed the surface water ESB or face a decline in groundwater recharge and cannot meet minimum needs within the ESB. A further 1.5 billion people live in catchments outside the ESB with insufficient surface water to meet needs, requiring both supply and demand-side transformations. These results highlight the challenges and opportunities of meeting even basic human access needs to water and protecting aquatic ecosystems.
Cities leading hydrogen energy development: the pledges and strategies of 39 Chinese cities
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-09-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S42949-022-00067-9
Abstract: Hydrogen energy from renewables has the potential to address climate challenges, and technological advancements are vital for driving this energy transition. Globally, an increasing number of cities are actively adopting hydrogen strategies. The literature on the urban sustainability transition primarily focuses on policy innovations for technology adoption, while the role of cities in enabling technological innovation is underexplored. Here, we address this gap by analyzing 122 policy documents from 39 Chinese cities with hydrogen plans by using qualitative content analysis methods. The findings reveal myriad and critical roles of cities in fostering technological innovations in an emergent hydrogen economy via targeted policy support and investment in desired technologies. By moving ahead of the national government, these early movers play a critical role in creating early momentum and laying the foundation for future scale transition. Our findings also point to a clear need for these bottom-up initiatives to be better guided and channeled toward clean hydrogen development, as the lack of upper-level policy guidance can lead to ersified priorities and outcomes. Our findings call for renewed research and policy attention to the proactive role of cities in technological innovation and the sustainability transition and they stress the importance of engaging cities in hydrogen economy development nationally and internationally.
The urban south and the predicament of global sustainability
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-07-2018
Impacts of meeting minimum access on critical earth systems amidst the Great Inequality
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-11-2022
DOI: 10.1038/S41893-022-00995-5
Abstract: The Sustainable Development Goals aim to improve access to resources and services, reduce environmental degradation, eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. However, the magnitude of the environmental burden that would arise from meeting the needs of the poorest is under debate—especially when compared to much larger burdens from the rich. We show that the ‘Great Acceleration’ of human impacts was characterized by a ‘Great Inequality’ in using and damaging the environment. We then operationalize ‘just access’ to minimum energy, water, food and infrastructure. We show that achieving just access in 2018, with existing inequalities, technologies and behaviours, would have produced 2–26% additional impacts on the Earth’s natural systems of climate, water, land and nutrients—thus further crossing planetary boundaries. These hypothetical impacts, caused by about a third of humanity, equalled those caused by the wealthiest 1–4%. Technological and behavioural changes thus far, while important, did not deliver just access within a stable Earth system. Achieving these goals therefore calls for a radical redistribution of resources.
Upscaling urban data science for global climate solutions
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1017/SUS.2018.16
Abstract: Manhattan, Berlin and New Delhi all need to take action to adapt to climate change and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While case studies on these cities provide valuable insights, comparability and scalability remain sidelined. It is therefore timely to review the state-of-the-art in data infrastructures, including earth observations, social media data, and how they could be better integrated to advance climate change science in cities and urban areas. We present three routes for expanding knowledge on global urban areas: mainstreaming data collections, lifying the use of big data and taking further advantage of computational methods to analyse qualitative data to gain new insights. These data-based approaches have the potential to upscale urban climate solutions and effect change at the global scale.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions Accounting of Urban Residential Consumption: A Household Survey Based Approach
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 06-02-2013
Sustainable urban systems: Co-design and framing for transformation
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 08-2018
Enabling sustainability transitions in Asia: The importance of vertical and horizontal linkages
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2009
Identifying a Safe and Just Corridor for People and the Planet
Publisher: American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Date: 04-2021
DOI: 10.1029/2020EF001866
Abstract: Keeping the Earth system in a stable and resilient state, to safeguard Earth's life support systems while ensuring that Earth's benefits, risks, and related responsibilities are equitably shared, constitutes the grand challenge for human development in the Anthropocene. Here, we describe a framework that the recently formed Earth Commission will use to define and quantify target ranges for a “safe and just corridor” that meets these goals. Although “safe” and “just” Earth system targets are interrelated, we see safe as primarily referring to a stable Earth system and just targets as being associated with meeting human needs and reducing exposure to risks. To align safe and just dimensions, we propose to address the equity dimensions of each safe target for Earth system regulating systems and processes. The more stringent of the safe or just target ranges then defines the corridor. Identifying levers of social transformation aimed at meeting the safe and just targets and challenges associated with translating the corridor to actors at multiple scales present scope for future work.
Changing urban phosphorus metabolism: Evidence from Longyan City, China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2015
DOI: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2015.06.073
Abstract: Rapid worldwide urbanization calls for a better understanding of phosphorus (P) metabolism and the interaction of the physical, ecological and social drivers of P cycling in urban systems. We quantified the P metabolism in Longyan, a city with a major agricultural economy, and analyzed its long-term trends over the rapid urbanization period of 1985-2010. Both input P (from 4811 t P to 14,296 t P) and output P (from 4565 t P to 13,509 t P) increased significantly. The agricultural subsystem contributed most to the P metabolism, accounting for 85% of total P input. The share of P input lost to the environment, i.e. discharge to water, accumulation in the soil and landfill, increased from 66% to 72%, while food production efficiency decreased from 48% to 29%. Per capita P input showed linear relationships with the Human Development Index (HDI), S-curve relationship with the urbanization rate, and logistic curve relationship with per capita disposable income. A more meat-based diet shift both in Longyan and surrounding cities greatly affected Longyan's food production structure. Our results demonstrate that P metabolic quantity, configuration, and efficiency in production systems can change drastically in response to changes in consumer and producer behavior as well as in socioeconomic structure. A larger regional scale should be considered in urban P management, when trying to mitigate the increase in P use. The results also imply that sustainable urban P management will require a system-wide, cross-sector and cross-boundary approach.
Equity and sustainability in the Anthropocene: a social–ecological systems perspective on their intertwined futures
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2018
DOI: 10.1017/SUS.2018.12
Abstract: It is no longer possible nor desirable to address the dual challenges of equity and sustainability separately. Instead, they require new thinking and approaches which recognize their interlinkages, as well as the multiple perspectives and dimensions involved. We illustrate how equity and sustainability are intertwined, and how a complex social–ecological systems lens brings together advances from across the social and natural sciences to show how (in)equity and (un)sustainability are produced by the interactions and dynamics of coupled social–ecological systems. This should help understand which possible pathways could lead to sustainable and fair futures.
Scaling urban sustainability experiments: Contextualization as an innovation
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2019
Alterations in use of space, air quality, temperature and humidity by the presence of vertical greenery system in a building corridor
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 05-2018
Locking in positive climate responses in cities
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 27-02-2018
Compatibility in cross-city innovation transfer: Importance of existing local experiments
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2022
Intercity variability and local factors influencing the level of pesticide residues in marketed fruits and vegetables of China
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2020
DOI: 10.1016/J.SCITOTENV.2019.134481
Abstract: Controlling pesticide residues in marketed fruits and vegetables is an essential issue for food safety and public health. Local governments improve local conditions, like policymaking and implementation, economic structure and development level, and agricultural practices, to control pesticide residues. However, the level of influence and relative importance of these local factors are not analyzed quantitatively. Here we present the food safety level across 42 Chinese cities as measured by the level of pesticide residues (LPR) in fresh fruits and vegetables, and explore how local socio-economic and policy factors influence its intercity variability. A total of 12,070 s le measurements were used in this study. The relationships between LPR and local socio-economic-policy factors were tested by using Pearson correlation analysis, two-sided independent t-test, and stepwise multivariable linear regression. Our analysis shows that: (1) the pesticide residues in 97.1% of the s les were within legal limits, but the LPR had a considerable cross-city disparity and (2) eight socio-economic-policy variables were found to be significantly correlated with LPR at the city level. Six policy-related variables, namely the number of pesticide-related policies, the number of food safety-related policies, the number of food safety-related news reports, the supermarket revolution, the administrative level of the city and the transparency of supervision of food safety, could explain 32.8% of the intercity variability of LPR. This was followed by the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita from the tertiary sector (15.6%) and the pesticide usage per cultivated area in local agriculture (13.4%). After eliminating the collinearity of these variables, local socio-economic-policy factors collectively could explain around 40% of the intercity variability of LPR. This indicates that local-level policy may have a larger impact on local food safety in terms of LPR than economic factors or local agricultural practice, underscoring the critical role of local government in ensuring food safety.
Reconciling safe planetary targets and planetary justice: Why should social scientists engage with planetary targets?
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 12-2021
Welfare effects of rural-urban land conversion on different aged land-lost farmers: exemplified in Wuhan city
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-01-2016
Transboundary Environmental Footprints of the Urban Food Supply Chain and Mitigation Strategies
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 06-08-2020
Reconstructing the Energy History of a City
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 21-11-2012
Integration of urban science and urban climate adaptation research: opportunities to advance climate action
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-06-2023
DOI: 10.1038/S42949-023-00113-0
Abstract: There is a growing recognition that responding to climate change necessitates urban adaptation. We sketch a transdisciplinary research effort, arguing that actionable research on urban adaptation needs to recognize the nature of cities as social networks embedded in physical space. Given the pace, scale and socioeconomic outcomes of urbanization in the Global South, the specificities and history of its cities must be central to the study of how well-known agglomeration effects can facilitate adaptation. The proposed effort calls for the co-creation of knowledge involving scientists and stakeholders, especially those historically excluded from the design and implementation of urban development policies.
Integrating solutions to adapt cities for climate change
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2021
Networking urban science, policy and practice for sustainability
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2019
Scientific outcome of the IPBES-IPCC co-sponsored workshop on biodiversity and climate change
Publisher: Zenodo
Date: 2021
Governing for Transformative Change across the Biodiversity–Climate–Society Nexus
Publisher: Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date: 06-2022
Abstract: Transformative governance is key to addressing the global environmental crisis. We explore how transformative governance of complex bio ersity–climate–society interactions can be achieved, drawing on the first joint report between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Bio ersity and Ecosystem Services to reflect on the current opportunities, barriers, and challenges for transformative governance. We identify principles for transformative governance under a bio ersity–climate–society nexus frame using four case studies: forest ecosystems, marine ecosystems, urban environments, and the Arctic. The principles are focused on creating conditions to build multifunctional interventions, integration, and innovation across scales coalitions of support equitable approaches and positive social tipping dynamics. We posit that building on such transformative governance principles is not only possible but essential to effectively keep climate change within the desired 1.5 degrees Celsius global mean temperature increase, halt the ongoing accelerated decline of global bio ersity, and promote human well-being.
Towards sustainable urban water resource management: a case study in Tianjin, China
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 2001
DOI: 10.1002/SD.149
Landscape Urbanization and Economic Growth in China: Positive Feedbacks and Sustainability Dilemmas
Publisher: American Chemical Society (ACS)
Date: 06-12-2011
DOI: 10.1021/ES202329F
Related Organisations
Yale University Yale School Of Forestry And Environmental Studies
Location: United States of America
Related Funding Activities
Australian Laureate Fellowships - Grant ID: FL230100021
Start Date: 06-2024
End Date: 05-2029
Amount: $3,141,020.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityLinkage Projects - Grant ID: LP210301290
Start Date: 03-2023
End Date: 02-2026
Amount: $289,448.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity